Service Clubs: Orders Of The Obsolete

Their names used to be synonymous with civic work, but ask some people today what the Kiwanis, Masons, Elks or Rotarians do and you might get a blank stare.

Increasingly, these service clubs are dwindling as members age.

Club officials say that the men who used to join these groups are spending more time at demanding jobs and can no longer sneak away for two-hour lunchtime meetings. What little of their free time remains is devoted to family as men begin to take more active roles in raising children.

Clubs that allow female members find themselves competing for women who struggle with juggling career, carpools and cooking.

"Times have changed,'' said Everett Rawlings, secretary for the Boca Raton Noontime Kiwanis Club, which is struggling to recruit new members to expand beyond 24. "It used to be in years past that it was important for people to be active in civic clubs."

The younger generations aren't joining as much as their fathers.

"In our local club, we have a lot of older members. I'm 61 and I'm one of the younger guys," Rawlings said.

The lament echoes across South Florida lodges.

"Nowadays, when you say to someone `Hey. Would you like to join me for a Kiwanis Club meeting?' people look at you kind of puzzled and say `Kiwanis -- Isn't that the Australian airline?'" said Kiwanis International spokesman David R. Williams referring to his club's mistaken association with the carrier Quantas.

Roy Gonas, district governor for a Rotary region that includes Broward County, Miami-Dade County, Monroe County and Grand Bahama Island, said that while his region's rosters remain "healthy," they have seen a membership decrease of about 5 percent annually. The Kiwanis Club's membership peaked in 1990 and has been decreasing between 1 and 2 percent each year, Williams said.

The Rotary Club of Delray Beach Sunrise is losing members about the same pace as they initiate new ones, said the club's secretary, Robert B. Baena.

"We are feeling a pinch," he said. "We meet at 7:30 in the morning. No one wants to get up that early."

The Shriners have been trying to stop the attrition in their organization by adding day care centers and diaper changing stations at their temples for people who want their children close by during meetings.

"We used to just be a fraternity of men focused on fun and fellowship," said Mike Andrews of the Shriners of Tampa. "Now we're a fraternity of men with a focus on the family," he said.

Such innovation has not been lost on other clubs.

The Fort Lauderdale Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks, whose members were once among the black community's most prominent, stage weekend music performances at the club's lodge on Northwest Second Street hoping to renew interest in the club among younger people.

"All of us, all the fraternal orders are struggling," said Roschell J. Franklin Jr. of the Elks. "People just don't seem to see the necessity of joining a group anymore," he added wistfully. "People reach the point where they're making a little money and they're comfortable and they don't see the benefits of membership."

Donald Keith, secretary of the BPOE Elks Lodge 2166 in Boca Raton, said that of the 30 new members recruited in the past year, less than a dozen were in their 30s and even fewer were in their 20s.

"It seems that the younger generation is not into the organizations," Keith said. The lodge is now changing the wording in some of its rituals to accommodate female members.

"We're going to change the wording of a lot of things cause it used to say "brother," he said.

That was not the case a generation ago.

Franklin recalled fondly the Elks' role in leading Cub Scout troops and doing volunteer work during his childhood. Herbert Brown, a past president of the Rotary Club of Clearwater, was inducted into the Rotary in Opelousas, La., in 1945, shortly after returning from his tour of duty in WWII. It was, he said, what every man did in his small town and others like it across the country.

"I already knew just about every member in the club," Brown said. "You know there were only maybe 15,000 folks in the whole town and all the important people were in Rotary.

Brown said those Rotarians were not only the Main Street merchants and bankers. They were also the people committed to the organization's motto of "Service above Self."

Siegle, the Fort Lauderdale Rotary president, said that potential members sometimes think that Rotary is simply a way for them to further their businesses or careers.

"This is not a networking group, it's a service club," Siegle said. "When you join, you should be prepared to work," he said.

Gonas said Rotarians' work could be seen in national and international projects ranging from eradicating polio to eliminating illiteracy. But the service club officials say they need new members in order to keep up the volunteerism.